


adora

by mortalitasi



Series: ad lucem [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, and it's all syrupy sap, enjoy?? these two are eating me alive, gen - Freeform, i don't know man it's the first thing i've finished in months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6985831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke devises a plan to help Fenris find some relief from the pain the markings cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	adora

**Author's Note:**

> this is garbage and unedited but i'm proud of finishing something anyway lmao!!! pls love me

Her room does not capture heat like the rest of the chambers in the estate.  
  
That's to say—almost not at all. Though the fire in the hearth is rarely absent, a persistent chill clings to the place, like it clings to her; her skin is always cool, a shock of cold against the heat of the lyrium. It's been years since he's truly felt the cold—not even the foggy mornings and the icy dew of Seheron at dawn couldn't make him more than simply uncomfortable. He does not complain about the more unpleasant nights in Kirkwall. Cold is one of the only things that helps with the pain, despite not being fully effective. The sting of it distracts from the throb of the markings, dulls the edge of the jagged burning feeling, though it never lasts for long.  
  
Hawke, in her loose finery, is curled up against her headboard with a book in her lap when he steps through the doorway, and with her usual preternatural perception, looks up to find him standing there, more nervous than he's been in some time. The ghost of a smile she offers him gladdens his heart, for a moment.  
  
“Take a seat,” she says, scooting over so she can make room for him along the side of the bed. The scarlet sheets bunch under her with the movement.  
  
He pads over carefully, but his shoulders are still tense when he does as she suggested. She's at his left, very beautiful and very pale in the firelight, the escaped wisps of her bound hair framing her face flatteringly. Her eyes regard him with a respect he's come to be used to.  
  
“Would you like a drink before we begin?” Hawke asks, crossing her long legs. He blinks stupidly at the sight, before reminding himself that the reason he's here has nothing to do with _legs_.  
  
“Considerate,” he says, “but no. I'd rather have my wits about me, such as they are.”  
  
She releases a soft huff of air—her version of amused laughter—and nods. “I understand. There's no reason to believe the procedure will be invasive, but I've never performed it, so there is no reason to believe it _wouldn't_ be, either.” She stops after that sentence, observing him and how the weight of those words have affected him. He suspects she knows his anxieties, as she always has. Her next words are a quiet murmur. “We don't have to do this. You can go at any time.”  
  
Fenris gives her his own little smile. “I know. I do not wish to.”  
  
“Ah,” she says helpfully, and then swallows, as though a rock's been stuck in her throat. “That is... good, then.”  
  
He has to restrain a chuckle. Near ten years, and her awkwardness in the face of his total trust persists. He settles for an apt “yes” of agreement instead, to give her room to change the subject. She seizes the chance with both hands.  
  
“I'll explain what I plan to do,” she tells him, shuffling closer. “I've been doing some reading since we last talked.”  
  
“I noticed,” he remarks. He glances at the gigantic tomes stacked on her desk: the one at the top of the pile is opened to a place in the middle, a worn velveteen bookmark resting in the center. He did not have time to look at them properly before he sat down—nerves, wonderful things—but he'd caught a glimpse of what looked like a complicated anatomical diagram spread across its pages.  
  
She purses her lips, not sure where to start. “There are many theories about where lyrium came from, what it truly is, and how it serves us—it's closer to a living thing than an inanimate object, truth be told. It's not a tool to be taken lightly, as you well know. No one has a fully-realized idea about its qualities, or what it can do to a person.” Aisling's gaze drops to the markings on his left forearm, where the white veins of their patterns are most visible, near the crook of his elbow. “You were not born a mage, and yet you perform near-magical feats. Maybe that's not wholly accurate. It _is_ magic, at its core.”  
  
Under her watchful gaze, he flexes his arm, clenches his fist. “I've...” He wets his lips. “I've never really had time to think about it.”  
  
“It wouldn't have been a priority,” she agrees, shrugging. “I don't have access to a Tevinter repository of texts, but Kirkwall's history means there _is_ a trail, if you know where to look.”  
  
“And you know?” he asks, unable to help himself. A corner of her mouth quirks up, a fraction self-assured.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Now the humor between them sobers, scant as it is, and the quicksilver grey of her eyes becomes bright with something that might be trepidation. Hawke wears the change of her moods well, with no shame, though she isn't the sort of expressive one might picture upon first hearing the word; and while it would be untrue to say she is never hesitant or disconcerted, it would also be untrue to say that she shows it when she is. It still surprises him, really, the ease with which he can guess what she is thinking, and it'd surprised him even more in years past that he seemed to be the only one able to do so. Varric had laughed at his puzzlement.  
  
_Even I needed some practice with her, Elf._  
  
“When you first mentioned the markings hurt, I wondered...” Her voice trails away, and then she shakes her head. “Either way—due to the nature of lyrium itself, and the way spellcasting works, I have a hypothesis about what could be the matter.” She purses her lips together, looking for her next words. “When a mage calls upon their mana to fuel a spell, there's often a pull in the air, a distortion, of sorts. I... sometimes, standing next to my father while he worked his magic, I felt short of breath. That's how powerful he was. Have you noticed it?”  
  
“Yes,” he says, curious. “I cannot say it's comfortable.”  
  
“That feeling is a physical reaction to Fade,” she explains. “Or what little we can bring of it to this world to make magic a reality. This energy dissipates when the casting is finished. It's burned away, used, like it's supposed to. But when _you_ call upon magic...”  
  
“It has nowhere to go,” he finishes. The idea seems stupidly simple, but it makes sense.  
  
“Precisely,” Aisling says. She glances at the fire, and the shadows it casts sit bold on her high cheekbones. “The excess of whatever version of mana those markings allow you to use lingers on in you. I think that's what's causing the pain, and perhaps any other symptoms you've experienced over the years. We still know only precious little about how mundane bodies interact with the arcane. If we could somehow _extract_ that mana from the markings, allow it to renew naturally rather than fester, well—it could be an improvement.”  
  
He looks at her for a long moment, and that makes what he wanted to say drift from mind. She's serious about this—about helping him. She always has been, plainly, quietly, readily. Several things bubble up inside him, fiercely: _I love you_ , and _I trust you,_ but he pushes those down. “I take it you have an idea,” he settles on at last.  
  
“I do,” she confirms, and then a look of vague discomfort twists her features, her version of courtesy. Perhaps bashfulness. “But to start with, I'd need to draw on a significant vein of lyrium, like—the one on your spine.”  
  
He laughs shortly and reaches for the clasps of his breastplate. “You could have simply asked me to take it off.”  
  
Aisling clears her throat. “Yes. Well...”  
  
The rest of his armor comes off in a series of practiced movements; _click_ , the gauntlets fall free one at a time, coming to rest beside each other on the mattress, shining in the firelight. His hands seem bare without them, too vulnerable, as if the pointed claws they afford him are more in his nature than the blunted tips of his own fingers, nails clipped close and clean to the skin, the way he's been taught to keep them. The stripes of lyrium on his knuckles are an odd sight, even to him. He turns away from the gauntlets and goes to work on the laces at the back of his tunic, working at the clips with steady precision. _Click, click_.  
  
Now the fabric peels away like a dry husk, hanging at his waist and leaving him uncovered from the hips upward. His skin prickles in reaction to the air, tightening, and the a wave of dull aching washes over him. The markings really do despise changes in temperature, though they never seem to be doing any changing themselves.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
He smiles wanly. “Never better.”  
  
Her eyes sweep over the exposed expanse of his back, more clinical than admiring, though there is a bit of warmth there that gladdens him.  
  
“I don’t know if this will hurt or not,” she says at last. Plainly, the admission bothers her. “You should get comfortable. We could be here for a while.”  
  
He scoots back, a little closer, but does not lift his feet. He’d rather keep her bed clean.  
  
The mattress dips as she nears him, pushes back her sleeves, lifts her hands, and—does nothing. Her palms are hovering above his shoulder blades, centimeters away from touching him. It’s been quite a while since that awkward moment they shared in this room, when words failed him and all he could do was sit beside her, but he thinks he knows what to do now, which words to speak to help this along.  
  
“I trust you,” he says, just loud enough to be heard, his thoughts from earlier now given form.  
  
She sighs, very shortly, the gust of her breath ghosting at his neck. Her fingertips trace down the thick column of lyrium tattooed along his backbone, and the markings react, flaring to life with a hum of magic. The very ends of her nails—delicately-maintained, long, honed to a slight edge, the color of good agreggio—drag along a curve below the stretch of his shoulders, and he can’t help the reflexive (and certainly agreeable) shiver that undulates through him from head to toe. The buzz of her magic blooms at the base of his gut, an unfurling flower of heat, and then spreads outward, not painful, not wrong—just present.  
  
There’s no way to describe the sensation of an enchantment gathering under your skin; the lyrium is not _truly_ effervescing, he knows, but he cannot stop his mind from believing it to be so, which is why the best way to deal with it is to ignore it. As much as he can, anyhow. He knows the feeling well—it begins with bubbles and turns to a molten punishment so hot it chills rather than burns. Lyrium is warm at a distance, he remembers that much from the tattered tail-ends of the memories of the ritual, but it’s never that way on contact, not on the surface. The real challenge lies within, after breaking the lyrium’s skin—after you are submerged.  
  
But what she’s doing feels… different. There is no discomfort, except for the lancing swell of his own dread and anticipation.  
  
He hears it before he sees it. A singing sort of sound, a short, sharp little _shing!_ that rings in his right ear clear as a morning bell—it fades away instantly, softening into silence, but then the ash begins to drift past him—no, _upward_ —and he calls it ash because he does not know what else to name it. Blue, he thinks as one of the petals skims his arm; the contact makes it dissolve into a spray of tiny, tiny, tiny motes of the same color, each of them glowing with the familiar pulse of awakened lyrium, like miniature stars.  
  
“Is that… coming from me?” he asks as Hawke moves her hands lower.  
  
“Yes,” she says. “I believe it’s a sign this is working. The magical buildup here is so—brittle.” She quiets, and the blue glow strengthens. “It’s good you’re being rid of it.”  
  
A tautness he did not know existed has come undone, leaving his shoulders limp. “It certainly _feels_ good.”  
  
She might be smiling. He cannot tell, with his back to her. “That’s what I like to hear.”  
  
He only offers a long hum in response.  
  
There’s no telling how many minutes they spend quiet, with Aisling weaving whorls of magic up and away from him; they snake about the air, ribbons of smoke caught in a wind that does not exist—maybe not in this world—dissipating once they hit the burgundy canopy of Hawke’s four-poster bed. Surrounded like this, by blue fire that does not burn, seeing it pulled from his skin and fanned until it dies, it makes the entire experience seem… surreal; and that is considering there has been no shortage of the bizarre and unbelievable in the last few years of his life.  
  
When the glow fades and he cannot feel the buzz of her mana against his back, he begins to turn to her, and her voice stops him.   
  
“Wait,” Aisling says. “Tell me how this feels.”  
  
And then she nudges the flat of her palm flush with the raised contour of lyrium on his spine. He tenses, out of instinct born from days of agony and discomfort, and—nothing happens. Nothing… happens?  
  
“Fenris?”  
  
“It’s—” The sentence breaks, barbed, in his mouth. He starts again. “There’s no pain.”  
  
A rustle of the sheets as she slides into place beside him. Now he can see her face, a little drawn with the continued effort of sustaining a new spell for such a while, but composed, as always, though her meticulously-shaped brows are high on her forehead with surprise. “No pain?”  
  
He reconsiders it. Rotates an arm. Lets the skin stretch. Nods. “No pain.”  
  
She grins—actually grins—cheeks dimpling, and the rarity and delight of it startles a laugh out of him.  
  
“Is it that surprising?”  
  
She composes herself with the swiftness of a collapsing card tower, and for a second he regrets ever saying anything; this is how she is, and how she’s always been. You can only glance at the light inside when its sheltering shell splinters—it happens in increments of a second, and it is achingly easy to overlook, but seeing these infinitesimal, precious pieces of who she is outside the walls she’s built for herself is like catching sight of treasure. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.  
  
“I expected the spell to operate to some degree,” she says, casting her eyes down at his arm between them. “I expected… _something_ to happen. Failure, perhaps. Or a halfway success.”  
  
“If it would make you feel better, there is some lingering soreness,” he remarks, and her gaze is immediately upon him again. “It’s nothing serious.”  
  
“The problem will most likely return,” Aisling says. “Not as extremely as before, as you were untreated for years, but the buildup will collect again. This isn’t a permanent solution, and for that I am sorry.”  
  
He shakes his head. “Don’t apologize,” he tells her, though the emotional burr in his voice mangles the words some. “You’ve done more than anyone ever has. The pain—it… it will be good to learn to live without it again.”  
  
“If you experience any adverse symptoms, you must tell me,” she says, all but commanding. “I took preventative measures to make sure the reactivity would be minimized, but—”  
  
“I will be fine,” Fenris interrupts. “I _am_ fine.” He coughs, clearing his throat. “In large part, thanks to you.”  
  
Just a suspicion of the grin that had slipped by her guard earlier comes back, lifting a corner of her lovely mouth. “Likewise.”  
  
He flexes his hands, curling them into fists cautiously, taken aback at the lack of throbbing. The possibilities are near to drowning him—sleep, uninterrupted; dressing, painless; moving, running, fighting, living, all unhindered; and _bathing_ —it’s so overwhelming, retrieving every tiny normal thing he thought he’d lost forever.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, rather suddenly, like he couldn’t have kept it in any longer lest it endangered him.  
  
“There’s no need to thank me,” she says, ducking her face away. “I did what I did because—well. You deserve to be happy. You deserve everything.” She stops there, splaying her palms out on her knees, and he pretends to not have noticed that the tips of her ears, peeking out from under the rich fall of her hair, are pink.  
  
He leans in, nose brushing at the crest of her cheek, the current of his breath making the strands by her ear flutter. She closes her eyes and turns in toward him instinctively—it pleases him, how she wishes to be close—and he places a kiss on the first swatch of pale skin he finds, right there on the proud arc of her jaw. “Don't worry. I _am_ happy,” he confides.  
  
Another smile, another treasure. “Then I am as well,” Aisling says.  
  
Fenris sits back. The knot in his shoulder pulls, and a wince escapes him before he can contain it. She catches it, of course, despite having been lovedrunk and red-cheeked just seconds earlier.  
  
“The newest batch of my bathing oils arrived yesterday,” she tells him.  
  
He snorts. Her invitations have gotten less subtle with the years. “How intriguing.”  
  
“There’s all sorts of wisdom to be found beneath a mountain of suds,” she quips.  
  
“That—was almost sarcastic.”  
  
“Best not tell Varric.”  
  
He begins kicking off his leggings. “Your secret is safe with me.”

 

…

 

_The steam from the bath is still subsiding when he takes one of her bristle-brushes to his hair, combing it all back until it's been smoothed away from his face. Once the moisture evaporates it will return to being the fluffed mess he's most familiar with, but the change—and the feeling of cleanliness—is gratifying. It feels odd, to have nothing covering his forehead, to have nothing clinging and brushing at his cheeks. Naked, almost. Strange._

_“Fenris," she says, and his the responding thrill in his heart is nearly enough to make him grin like a fool._

_"Hm?"_

_She reaches out, the long sleeve of her robe whispering along her arm, and with the gentlest of touches, cants his head upward. Her fingers are cool under his chin, despite having been in the hot water: he's thinking about them, the slope of her hand, when she presses her lips to his brow. The scent of her lingers everywhere around them, sweet stephanotis and mourning cypress, cream and amber, all her, all he wants. Her kiss is soft. A promise. Safety._

_He shuts his eyes._


End file.
